Muirfield Foundation

Muirfield Foundation is not a conventional open-application grantmaker — it is a compact, family-governed vehicle with a strong pass-through pattern. Structurally: two unpaid officers (Susan M. Sherrerd as President/Treasurer/Secretary; Ellen D. Harvey as Vice President), no program staff, and administration handled from the Philadelphia office of law firm Dechert LLP (2929 Arch St), a common arrangement for small single-family foundations that outsource compliance rather than run active programs. Its own IRS filing states it will accept a 'written letter including nature of charitable organization and verification of federal tax exempt status' from any 501(c)(3), with no stated deadline and no formal application portal (application_process, application_deadline, and application_form_url are all blank in its record).

But the revealed behavior over the last five fully reported fiscal years (2019-2023) tells a different story: every itemized grant Muirfield made went to a single recipient, Marin Community Foundation, and each transfer is labeled 'Contribution to Susan Sherrerd DAF.' In practice, Muirfield's charitable disbursements ($428,000-$510,000/year in that window, roughly $460,000-$469,000 again in FY2024) function as a conduit that refills Sherrerd's personal donor-advised fund rather than as direct checks to grantee nonprofits. The actual downstream giving decisions happen inside that DAF, which carries no public grant-by-grant disclosure requirement, so an outside applicant cannot verify from Muirfield's 990s alone who ultimately benefits.

For grant seekers, this reframes the opportunity. A cold letter to the Dechert LLP address is procedurally valid and costs little to send, but the five-year pattern suggests it is unlikely to produce a new, unsolicited grantee relationship — this reads as a legacy family foundation whose primary current function is capitalizing Sherrerd's DAF-based giving. The higher-leverage path is aligning with the causes Sherrerd personally champions through that DAF and her related network: gender-responsive climate investing, women as climate decision-makers, and blended finance for water/sanitation and resilience in emerging markets (evidenced by her engagement with Heading for Change, 2X Global, and a WaterEquity Global Access Fund IV investment). Organizations in that space, or Princeton-affiliated education initiatives tied to her family's giving history, are better positioned to eventually surface on her radar than a generic 501(c)(3) sending an unsolicited letter.

Muirfield's grantmaking is small, concentrated, and has been shrinking in real terms since a mid-2010s peak. Total assets stood at $8.2 million at FY2024 close, essentially flat with 2019-2023 ($7.7M-$8.5M) but down sharply from $19.1M-$20.2M in 2012-2015 — roughly a 60% contraction in the corpus, coinciding with two outsized grant years (2014: $1,231,800 paid; 2015: $1,255,000 paid) that appear to have drawn down the asset base before it stabilized near $8 million.

Since that reset, annual grants paid have run in a narrow band: $428,000 (2019), $437,000 (2020), $435,000 (2021), $510,000 (2022), $480,000 (2023), and roughly $460,000-$469,000 in 2024 per ProPublica's expense breakdown ($469,188 in charitable disbursements against $583,817 revenue). That is a five-year average of about $458,000/year — modest for a foundation with $8M+ in assets, and a payout rate in the 5.6%-6.2% range: above the 5% federal minimum, but not aggressively so.

Critically, this is not spread across a portfolio of grantees. The platform's grantee data shows exactly one recipient across the tracked grant history: Marin Community Foundation, receiving 5 grants totaling $2,372,000 (average $474,400), each purposed as 'Contribution to Susan Sherrerd DAF.' In other words, 100% of Muirfield's itemized, publicly disclosed giving in the period on record consolidates into a single conduit rather than direct grants to program-delivery nonprofits. There is no meaningful geographic breakdown beyond the CA-based intermediary (Marin Community Foundation, Marin County), and no program-area split is disclosed in Muirfield's own filings — focus_areas, ntee_category, and programs are all blank in its record. Third-party directories externally categorize it under higher/university education, but Sherrerd's own public statements point toward gender-and-climate investing as her active priority. Officer compensation is nominal-to-zero ($0 in 2024, $5,000/yr 2019-2023, $10,000/yr 2012-2015), reinforcing a low-overhead, family-run structure rather than a staffed grantmaking operation.

Muirfield sits at the small end of the family-foundation spectrum, and true apples-to-apples peers are hard to source publicly because comparably sized single-family foundations rarely itemize giving beyond required 990-PF minimums. The clearest structural peer is the Haldeman Family Foundation, which shares Muirfield's exact registered agent and address (Dechert LLP, 2929 Arch St, Philadelphia) — a common setup among small, law-firm-administered family foundations in the region — though its financials are not broken out in public directories.

Muirfield is small even relative to other small family foundations, and unlike a typical program foundation its own dollars mostly move one level upstream, into a much larger DAF platform, before reaching working nonprofits. That structure — common among law-firm-administered single-donor foundations — makes Muirfield itself a weak comparison point for 'typical' foundation benchmarking; the more useful peer set for strategy purposes is the network of organizations Sherrerd personally funds through her DAF and investment activity.

The most concrete recent data point is Muirfield's FY2024 Form 990-PF, filed October 27, 2025: $583,817 in revenue (44.3% dividends, 54.9% asset sales) against $533,382 in expenses, including roughly $469,188 in charitable disbursements, leaving net assets at $8.2 million — essentially unchanged from prior years. No leadership changes appear anywhere in the record; Susan M. Sherrerd and Ellen D. Harvey remain the sole officers across every filing reviewed.

The foundation's own domain, muirfieldfoundation.org, is registered and resolving, but as of this research (July 2026) it displays only a single placeholder line — 'This site is under development' — with no mission statement, program description, or contact form published. That itself is notable: it suggests the foundation may be in the early process of standing up its first real public web presence, though nothing substantive is live yet.

Muirfield is also listed (dated November 6, 2025) as a funding partner in Co-Impact's directory, positioned alongside other donors in that network. No independent press releases or news announcements about Muirfield specifically surfaced for 2025-2026. Susan Sherrerd's most visible recent public philanthropic activity is a donor-partner interview with Heading for Change, where she discusses gender-responsive climate investing, a 2015 site visit to Malawi that shaped her views on linking climate and development, and a personal investment in WaterEquity's Global Access Fund IV for household water and sanitation finance. That activity reflects her personal giving and investment network — likely funded in part through the Sherrerd DAF at Marin Community Foundation — rather than a distinct new Muirfield Foundation initiative.

Calibrate expectations before applying: this is a nearly invisible, unstaffed vehicle, and five straight years of itemized 990 data show 100% of disbursements moving to one intermediary (Sherrerd's own donor-advised fund at Marin Community Foundation), not to new outside grantees. A cold letter is low-cost to send but should not be the centerpiece of a funding strategy targeting Muirfield specifically.

If you do apply, follow the literal requirement in the filing: a written letter (not a full proposal or online submission) stating the nature of your charitable organization, plus proof of 501(c)(3) status — attach your IRS determination letter. There is no stated deadline and no published board meeting calendar, so timing is flexible but the review process is entirely opaque.

Address it correctly: Muirfield Foundation, c/o Dechert LLP, CIRA Centre, 2929 Arch St, Philadelphia, PA 19104; the foundation's phone numbers on file are (610) 834-9820 and (215) 994-2819 — call ahead to confirm the current preferred contact before mailing, since there is no listed contact_email. Do not expect an online portal: application_form_url, opportunities_url, and grants_page_url are all blank in Muirfield's own record, and the newly registered website (muirfieldfoundation.org) remains under construction with no submission mechanism as of mid-2026.

The better-ROI move for most applicants is to pursue alignment rather than a direct application. Sherrerd's demonstrated personal priority is gender-responsive climate investing and finance, and women as climate decision-makers, per her Heading for Change interview — organizations in that space, or already connected to Heading for Change, 2X Global, or WaterEquity, are more likely to reach her than a cold nonprofit contact. If your mission is higher or university education — especially Princeton-connected, her alma mater (Class of 1986), where her family funded Sherrerd Hall — that legacy focus area is worth naming explicitly. Keep any letter to one or two pages: nothing in the record suggests capacity to review lengthy unsolicited proposals, and a warm referral through Dechert LLP, Marin Community Foundation's DAF team, or Sherrerd's existing philanthropic network will outperform a form-letter mass solicitation.